Former "pussycat" Kimberly Wyatt instinctively knows that torturing rabbits, mice, and other animals for makeup is wrong. In her new ad for PETA U.K., Kimberly, who has her own line of cruelty-free cosmetics, exposes the painful and often deadly effects that chemical tests have on animals.

Hair: Klare Wilkinson|Make-up: Lan Nguyen|Studio: ShoreditchStudios.com|© karlgrant.com

Testing cosmetics on animals has been banned within the European Union (E.U.) since 2009. The E.U. also approved a ban on the sale of cosmetics containing ingredients that were tested on animals elsewhere, effective in 2013. But under pressure from some cosmetics companies, the E.U. is considering delaying that ban. Kimberly is hopeful that her ad will encourage the E.U. to uphold the original deadline.

She's got a lot of support: After PETA U.K., PETA Germany, and PETA Netherlands sent out action alerts to their members, the European Commission (the E.U.'s executive branch) received more than 20,000 e-mails urging it not to delay the ban. And when PETA U.S. sent out a similar action alert, we quickly collected and delivered more than 50,000 letters from people in the U.S. and other countries imploring the European Commission to keep the deadline and keep animals safe.

On this side of the pond, we aren't fortunate enough to have such a ban yet, but we can implement one in our homes by buying only cruelty-free products.

Talking about the cosmetics company here. e.l.f. Stands for "Eyes, Lips, Face," and these guys are pretty rad. In addition to selling 100 percent cruelty-free cosmetics, e.l.f. have teamed up with PETA for a promotion to help draw attention to our fur campaign. They made these handy little tweezers with a faux-leather case so that their customers can be "fur-free" too, and they also released the following statement:

I’m sure you heard the news that Tammy Faye Messner (formerly Bakker) passed away this weekend after a long battle with colon cancer.

Tammy Faye definitely had it rough, (check out the enjoyable documentary The Eyes of Tammy Faye if you’re interested in that part of her life), but she always managed to face the world with two very important things: her trademark chipper attitude and loads of mascara. And it was those two things that led us to get in touch with her back in 2003 to see if she’d be interested in helping with our Caring Consumer campaign. We found out that Tammy Faye loved animals and she was horrified to find out what happens to them in labs, so she jumped at the chance to help.

Tammy Faye clearly got the concept of true Christian compassion, and we’re proud to have had her grace the cover of our cruelty-free shopping guide.

RIP Tammy Faye.

Is it me or does Czech supermodel Petra Nemcova look more beautiful than ever lately? Well, I think I know why. I just came across this story about how she recently went vegan to make a statement and to save fish, so there ya go.

OK, I guess maybe her perfect genes could have a little something to do with it, but still . . . Seriously though, I can’t think of a better spokesperson for veganism than Petra. You go girl.

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Not only do the folks over at Smashbox Cosmetics not test their products on animals, but they have these great store displays—and check out the cruelty-free bunny logon on the top of the Smashbox website:

As if that weren't enough to make us really big fans of the company here, they’ve just teamed up with us to make it easy to give your mom a great Mother’s Day gift this year. They’ve made two new eye shadow palettes (I had to ask for help on that one, I was just going to call them “thingies”) in PETA’s honor that will be sold exclusively at Sephora stores. Which was pretty damn nice of them.

Short on cash? You can try your luck in a contest to win free palette thingies here. The grand-prize winner also gets a $100 Smashbox gift certificate.

And just in case you need it, here’s the full list of companies that do and don’t test on animals.